Three Part Harmony

by Holley Trent

  “What are those things?” Raleigh asked warily.

  She pointed to both men at once and then each other.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Nor do I,” Bruce said.

  “Because we didn’t get to finish our conversation earlier, either. But here’s what it is. You’ve been with each other.”

  Raleigh started toward the door to invite both to leave. He didn’t particularly wish to have his laundry aired with such candor, but Everley got in his way. “This isn’t Athena,” she said. “You can’t shut me out of your office and close the door here. I get to talk. Okay?”

  He put up his hands in a conciliatory gesture, although he was feeling anything but. He was glad, though, that she’d put away her forgets-to-hold-on persona for the moment. In fact, he was wondering if he should get a grip somewhere.

  “You’re not going to deny it?” she asked.

  “Let me know if you’re accusing me of something and I’ll decide if I need to edit my history.”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. When Bruce confessed it, I was just stunned that the two of you would have some intimacy in your history. You’ve never seemed to like each other very much and I’m honestly taken aback that you were attracted to each other.”

  “No need to be cruel, princess.” Raleigh rolled his eyes.

  “Oh! No no no.” She clapped her hands over her face and let out a choked-sounding laugh. “Shit, that didn’t come out right. You’re both attractive. I’d probably do a better job at this thinking thing if I didn’t think you both were.”

  “I think I get it.” Bruce rubbed the scruff on his chin and stared in the general direction of Raleigh’s wet cuffs. “Why would a hard-living rocker be at all interested in a man who wears dress socks? And a ginger at that.” His lip curled.

  Oh, I see how it is, then.

  “And what could I possibly see in a man who uses bar soap instead of shampoo and who has to baby powder his pants to get out of them?” Raleigh asked drolly.

  “You weren’t so distraught by the fit of my pants when you were jerking me off.”

  “And I don’t recall you complaining about my socks when my cock was in your mouth.”

  “Oh, boy,” Everley said.

  “Sorry,” both men said at once.

  Certainly, Everley knew the full extent of Raleigh’s pettiness, but he didn’t want that to be one of her last memories of him.

  “I happen to like tight pants and socks that go with really nice shoes, so I’m probably the worst person to referee this exchange,” she said.

  “No need to referee,” Raleigh said. “I really don’t want to argue. I’m leaving as soon as the sun comes up and the roads warm a little. We’re done talking.”

  Bruce scoffed. “No, we bloody aren’t. Apparently, we’re having a fight over a woman, so let’s fight it out. You can keep your clothes on if you’d like. I’ve tussled both ways.”

  “I bet you have. That lifestyle of yours leaves something to be desired.”

  “Not particularly. I have Ev now.”

  “Yesterday, I was relatively certain you wanted me.”

  “Fuck you, Raleigh.”

  Raleigh ground his teeth. He deserved the aspersion, and he knew it. He shouldn’t have said that thing, and certainly not in front of Ev, but when he felt caged, he lashed out. At the moment, he was feeling extremely caged in with the two of them.

  “I believe the want of that is what got us into this mess in the first place,” he mumbled.

  “You said yes.”

  “Because I thought you were hot and I was curious.”

  “And you’re not anymore?”

  “When did I say I wasn’t?” Of course Raleigh was still curious, even after everything. Still far too open and willing to be used a little, if that was what Bruce wanted. Bruce was everything new and interesting—a work in progress who would never go stagnant. The opposite of Raleigh, maybe. He had almost everything Raleigh needed.

  But so did Everley.

  He’d never before felt such an acute urge to take care of someone, and all along, he’d thought she was the one person who didn’t deserve it.

  He didn’t deserve her.

  “Wait.” Everley darted a hand into the air like a ref calling a bad play. “Hold the hell up. Fighting over me, you mean?”

  “You’re worth fighting over, Ev.” The words may have been directed at Everley, but Bruce’s gaze was on Raleigh. “Told you that you could keep me. You said you would. Said you loved me.”

  “Did she?” Raleigh mouthed, daring him to gloat. Hating him but not.

  “She did,” Bruce whispered. “What do you know about that?”

  Enough to be jealous.

  “I...haven’t...changed my mind about that.” Toward the end of Everley’s statement, her voice had deteriorated to a nearly incomprehensible puff of air that sounded like the precursor to strangulation. And then she made that choking sound again. But the next sound was longer, fuller, and had her doubling her at the waist. Uproarious laughter. “Oh. My. God.”

  Bruce turned to him for counsel as her laughter intensified, and he shrugged. Whatever the joke was, Raleigh wasn’t in on it.

  * * *

  “Perhaps you could let me in on the joke,” Raleigh said.

  It wasn’t a joke, though. Not really, even if Lisa had made it sound like one.

  On paper, the arrangement could work. The men were argumentative, but that was all bluster and them picking at old wounds. She could tell because she knew what hurting looked like. She’d been facing it in the mirror for the better part of her adult life.

  They didn’t have to be that way. There was no scarcity of affection in that room. There was plenty to go around if they were willing to trust.

  She moved at a snail’s pace into the room and twined her fingers in front of her belly. As she sat on the foot of the bed, she met Raleigh’s gaze. “I’m sorry for laughing. It was a visceral thing. Reflex, you know, because I don’t really know how to propose this. But it makes sense to me.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Oh.” Bruce made a noise of revelation and put his head back. “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “Or it could be the worst idea ever,” she conceded.

  “Would be better than fighting.”

  “What would be better than fighting?” Raleigh demanded.

  Bruce leaned over and knocked on Raleigh’s forehead as though it were wood. “Anything alive in there? There’s a massive eureka moment happening and you’re evidently sleeping through it with your eyes open.”

  Raleigh grabbed the wrist of Bruce’s retreating arm and rolled his eyes, but otherwise didn’t respond with hostility. “Perhaps I need to be on a different plane of reality to make sense of it. Elucidate me.”

  “Gladly.” Bruce maneuvered Raleigh nearer to Everley. He made her take one of Raleigh’s hands. He took the other. They stared at each other in silence with their hands chained and Raleigh looking like he still hadn’t ascended to that different plane yet.

  Bruce swung their arms. “See?”

  “No.”

  Bruce pulled them in closer to Everley. “How about now?”

  “The last time I stood in a configuration like this, I was on the stage at one of my father’s reelection night events and as he waited for his opponent to concede, he pulled my mother and I into a prayer triangle.”

  Everley was reasonably certain there was nothing prayerful about what she wanted to happen. There may have been a few obscure Bible passages about partner sharing that may have been relevant, but whoever had penned them likely hadn’t envisioned the vagaries of modern times. Everley’s desire of the two men had nothing to do with ensuring the survival of her genes. It had more to do with her own survival. Happiness wasn’t a luxury. It was a nece
ssary vitamin that offset some of the bullshit people hurled at her.

  “I like the idea, Ev,” Bruce said. “Like it a lot. I could have a guy.”

  The way he drawled “guy” while looking contemplatively toward the ceiling hinted at some obscure meaning that flew right over her head.

  “Guy?” she whispered, needing to be sure they were all playing in the same key.

  “My bullshit translator. My second head. He’s good at that. Not that you aren’t, but because he’s such a naturally regimented bastard, I don’t feel as ashamed when I ask him do it.”

  “You shouldn’t feel ashamed, anyway,” Raleigh said quietly.

  “Most people act like I should.”

  “I think you already know how I feel about most people.”

  Never taking his gaze from Raleigh, Bruce gave a slow nod. “I do. Can’t trust a single bloody one of them, can you?”

  “Maybe a select few,” Raleigh said as he notched Bruce’s messy hair behind his ears. It immediately fell right back where it was, so Everley helped untangle the elastic barely holding on to the ponytail. Between the two of them, they could probably smooth it all out.

  “Everyone would get more of what they need this way,” she said.

  “Are...you talking about...” Raleigh was still wearing that news anchor frown—that expression of privileged naivety that usually accompanied talking heads on fake news shows.

  “We’re talking about this.” Bruce, with his hair half bound, sat Raleigh on the bed beside Everley, grabbed the sides of his face, and crushed his mouth against the other man’s.

  Raleigh exhibited several stages of struggle in seconds. The shock with the ineffectual push. The groan of reluctance that came with him gripping the front of Bruce’s wrinkled shirt. Then his hand finding purchase in Bruce’s hair and pulling Bruce’s head back with it. His scolding stare.

  And then the capitulation.

  He pulled Bruce closer and exhibited the depth of their familiarity. They’d been through the song before and had evidently learned all the opening strains.

  “And now you kiss her,” Bruce said on a gasp as he pulled away from Raleigh. “You see. We take turns.”

  Everley turned her knees toward Raleigh.

  Raleigh being Raleigh, he was low to show his concession. His jaw was tense. Expression grim.

  “If you don’t want to...” she whispered, trying not to be sad. Of course she wanted enthusiasm, but she also knew who Raleigh was. She couldn’t expect him to behave the same way as Bruce, even if he wanted the same thing.

  She tried to wait patiently and let him assess her with that critical hazel gaze, but she was tired of waiting for her life to sort itself out. She’d have to put some things into motion on her own. So she leaned in and laid a gentle kiss on his lips. Fortunately, his mouth was yielding. When she leaned for a second press, his lips parted. The tip of his tongue probed delicately against hers, or perhaps tentatively.

  He didn’t need to be tentative with her.

  “Stop tiptoeing around me, Raleigh,” she whispered as she eased onto his lap. “You came up here for me. I assumed that meant you gave a damn.”

  “I do.”

  “Then act like it.”

  He put his forehead against hers and made a sound of pure exasperation. “What do you want from me? What could you possibly want from me that you couldn’t get from him?”

  “Don’t frame it like that. It’s not about what Bruce can’t give me or what you can’t give me that he can. It’s about spreading out the effort.” Everley fidgeted the collar of his undershirt, pleased to be able to assist even in some small way. “Some people need people more than others. I think we all know how hard it is to connect to people when their natural instinct is to expect the worst of you. Or to prejudge you on who you’re connected to or where you’ve been seen rather than on your heart.”

  “Are you entirely certain I have a heart?”

  Bruce plopped on the bed behind them and lounged with the side of his face propped atop his fist. “It’s all right, lover. You don’t need to tell anyone else. It can be our little secret, just the three of us.”

  Everley laughed because she was certain Raleigh had a heart. People who forged friendships as deep and nuanced as the one he had with Stacia couldn’t be completely devoid of empathy and emotion. People who’d squeezed every possible spare coin out of staffs of malaise-stricken white-collar professionals to donate to literacy charities had passion.

  And people who would choose to take Everley to the movies and sit with her through not one, but two, rom-coms, couldn’t be at all bad...even if the movies were.

  “You have a heart,” Everley said. “And I think that you might even like me enough to give me a piece of it.”

  “I get the rest,” Bruce said.

  “You’re fighting over scraps,” Raleigh murmured, seemingly absently. He was toying with the sides of her hair, fondling the elastic band holding it all back from her face. A rare fidget on his part, perhaps. He’d done it to Bruce, now her.

  “We’re not fighting at all,” she said, pressing her cheek against his roving hand. “See? We get along just fine if we let ourselves.”

  “Do we want to?”

  “I think the question should be do you want to?” Bruce returned. “I’m not so hung up on traditionalism. I won’t feel any particular angst about there being two of you, trust me.”

  “And as we all saw earlier, I’m through with letting other people’s expectations shape my life,” Everley said. “Why can’t I be with you both, if you want me?”

  “Wanting you isn’t in question,” Raleigh said, his lips to the side of her neck, tenderly skimming along her pulse point.

  “So say yes,” Bruce said. “That way we don’t have to fight.”

  He didn’t want to fight, but Raleigh didn’t say yes, either. At least not with words.

  They’d talked too much already. For a little while, they could simply react and feel.

  He nudged her jacket over her shoulders. She didn’t look back at the thud it made as it hit the floor, or when her shirt followed.

  He undressed her efficiently, but carefully. Unbuttoning. Unzipping. Easing fabric down her legs. Unclasping her bra at the back and smoothing his hands around her ribs to cradle her breasts before the straps tangled on her arms.

  “Fewer seams and gouges today, hmm?” Bruce asked her. He was sitting up, then, watching Raleigh undress her with rapt attention.

  “No shapewear. Don’t need it out here.”

  “Don’t really need it back in the city, either.”

  She shrugged again and let Raleigh turn her to face him. “Sometimes I don’t mind. It’s a kind of armor. It’s one way of presenting myself. Sometimes I like to look cinched. Other times, I don’t care.”

  “I see.”

  Raleigh tipped her chin up to him. “Are we going to talk?”

  She laughed. “Bruce likes to talk. You’ll have to cope.”

  Seeming to realize what they were talking about on a delay, Bruce gasped with mock indignation. “The more I talk, the less sore you’ll be tomorrow. You should want me distracted.”

  Raleigh chuckled. “I don’t care if you talk. I’m just wondering if you need me to antagonize you to get wet.”

  “No, but you can tease me if you want to.” She slid her hand into his briefs and looped her fingers around the hard length of him. “Just know that sometimes, I tease back.”

  She smiled at his hiss and moaned at the dig of his fingertips into her biceps.

  “Not to be crass,” Bruce said, standing, “but who’s doing who? Because I think I’m owed.”

  Raleigh raised a brow. “Are you?”

  Out of the corners of her eyes, Everley could see Bruce wrestling off his sweatshirt. “You abandoned me.”

  “I
did?” Raleigh’s gaze sank rapidly, so Everley turned to see directly what the point of interest was.

  Bruce wasn’t wearing underwear.

  “Of course he isn’t,” she murmured to herself. It seemed so Bruce.

  “You left me in my basement,” Bruce said, raising his chin in defiance. “You left me and you weren’t done with me.”

  “Or the other way around, perhaps?” Raleigh asked.

  “Well, that’s obvious.”

  Raleigh looked down at Everley.

  Grinning, she put up her hands and eased away to let Bruce in. “I can wait my turn.”

  Already, she was getting so much more than she’d expected. If she’d ever thought it was possible that either of the men would have shown up, she would have left a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow. Sometimes, people who went missing wanted to be found, but not by just anyone.

  She pulled a rough afghan from the back of the hard wooden chair by the door and wrapped herself in it. Making a mental note to inform Lisa of the scratchiness of the blanket, she watched the men. She’d been expecting to see a struggle for dominance between the two of them because their personalities were each so large, so expressive. But there wasn’t any true dominant in the room. Not really. Raleigh’s hands may have been roving along Bruce’s skin, but only because Bruce had put them there.

  She couldn’t hear what he was whispering in Raleigh’s ear or what Raleigh whispered back, but she could see that there was no tension between the two of them. Raleigh’s shoulders had relaxed and that tic of tension he always wore in his jaw had abated.

  When his fingertips disappeared into Bruce’s mouth only to be replaced by Bruce’s tongue, Everley had to look away because the exchange was rapidly heating. The wet fingers had slid to a lower orifice, and of course she knew that was something that was done, and something she’d had done to her more times than she could count. She simply wasn’t used to people being so overt about their needs, and apparently they needed each other.

  “You don’t get to sit this one out,” Bruce scolded.

  A few seconds elapsed before she realized he was talking to her. “What?”